State-Run Media Smear Rush with Out-of-Context Quotes on Oil Spill

RUSH: Larry in Chicago, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thanks for taking the call.

RUSH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: I'm not going to give it to you today so you're safe here. Hey, I've been finding that the left is kind of -- it's getting to the point where there's just no-holds-barred. This morning we've got a radio talk show host here in Chicago, she's one of I think Ed Schultz little lieutenants, I don't know if you want me to say her name or not.

RUSH: Stephanie Miller, I know who she is. She used to be at Fox, she's let herself go.

CALLER: This morning, and I quote, she was disappointed that the bomber wasn't a white guy.

RUSH: Wait a second. Is this station -- I don't want you to give the call letters --

CALLER: No, I'm not, that's what I'm saying --

RUSH: No, no, no, no --

CALLER: -- to give any extra promotion.

RUSH: Is this station actually in Chicago or is it a suburban station 40 miles outside of town with a 5,000 watt stick?

CALLER: It could be the case, but it is a nationally syndicated talk show.

RUSH: Well, no, it's not because it doesn't cover 50% of the country.

CALLER: All I'm saying is the rhetoric, Rush, the rhetoric --

RUSH: I understand.

CALLER: Let me say this, too. On Friday, God is a Democrat because of the oil spill, because this way they can stop offshore drilling.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: This is the kind of rhetoric the right is accused of constantly.

RUSH: Well, I've got some sound bites coming up of leftists on TV going nuts with what I've said about the oil spill.

CALLER: -- Arizona, railing on this Arizona thing, too, and they're saying papers and Nazis and stuff like that. I would consider, when you're pulled over, you're asked for a driver's license and proof of insurance, that's not Nazism. And the name La Raza is "the race."

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: So for "the race" to be calling other people's Nazis, it's the height of hypocrisy. It's the height.

RUSH: It is hypocrisy.

CALLER: It's so frustrating, Rush.

RUSH: Well, I know but you gotta look past it. It's like this "God is a Democrat" business. What that comment means, God's a Democrat, oh, good an oil well blows up so that we will not have any more oil wells. We will go ahead, we will pollute the Gulf, we'll kill a bunch of birds, we'll cause all kinds of economic disaster and we will celebrate that so we don't have any more oil wells dug. I am being accused of saying exactly that when it's Democrats and liberal people that are saying it. Now, I have a story here from Brian Maloney, Radio Equalizer, that says it was the hapless Contessa Brewer who was on the Stephanie Miller show, who I said used to be at Fox but she's let herself go, it's too many appearances on Larry King. Contessa Brewer was on the Stephanie Miller show and she said: "I get frustrated... There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country. … There are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry."

So it was the hapless Contessa Brewer of MessNBC who was expressing sadness that a white tea party person was not responsible for the near explosion in Times Square. So there's that. When we come back I'm going to spend some time here analyzing or letting you hear Government-Run Media try to essentially blame me for the oil spill. I know, I know, I know there's an e-mail chain going on about this. It's the St. Louis Rams thing all over again. It's Michael J. Fox all over again. It never works, but it's just amazing. Twenty-one years and it never stops. They never debate me on what I actually say. They have to lie about things I didn't say and put that out there to try discredit me.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let's go to the audio sound bites. There's a giant e-mail chain letter going around start from the news media to blogs to try anything to take the attention away from the regime on their incompetence regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, what I'm saying about it is absolutely horrible. What I am saying about it -- and even what I'm not saying about it but yet what they say I'm saying about it even though I haven't said it -- is far worse than the spill itself. It's far worse than the inaction or the incompetence of Obama and anybody on down the line. Here are some examples of it. Last night Chris Matthews on MessNBC had Mother Jones magazine's Washington bureau chief David Corn talking about the oil spill.

MATTHEWS: Rush Limbaugh, talking about the timing of the oil rig explosion and his theories about what caused it. What a ridiculous comment to make. I mean, we -- we're talking about the worst environmental disaster in so many years where a whole part of our world we live in could be destroyed for years and years, and -- and here's this blowhard saying it might have been sabotage by the environmentalists who care more about the habitat than anybody.

CORN: You've heard of oil --

MATTHEWS: (interrupting) What is these...? What do these words he speaks mean anymore?

CORN: (snickering) Well, nothing. You've heard of oil exploration. This is oil exploitation. You know, anything that comes along, you twist it, you turn it --

MATTHEWS: (screaming) But these Dittoheads, they're bobbing their heads to this stuff!

CORN: But it's not... It's not just...

RUSH: No, no, no. (laughing) In the first place, he has not listened to this program nor read the transcripts. I didn't assign any sabotage on this until the regime sent SWAT teams in there -- and I never accused the administration of blowing up the rig. I said it appears the regime may be open to some sort of attack. Had I said ecoterrorism there wouldn't have been any question here but I don't think in those terms. I just think Senate bill blew it up and they send SWAT teams? The regime is sending SWAT teams? "Even the regime," I said, "must be open to the idea that this was not an accident and they're looking into it." All of a sudden now it is I, El Rushbo, claiming that wackos blew it up on purpose, when in fact a bunch of wacko let's have on the radio are saying, "God is a Democrat" for blowing up the oil well because this will prevent future oil wells -- and, by the way, Chris, you are damn right.

Look at all the money, look at all the effort being spent to save the birds and the habitat from the oil, and yet old people? Obama, on ABC: Give the hundred-year-old woman a pain pill. Don't start talking to me about this stuff. I mean, there aren't... Chris, do you really believe that there are environmentalist nuts who are not happy that this happened? I'm not saying they did it. But when Bill Nelson, senator from Florida, comes out there and says, "Well, that's just it! No more drilling! Absolutely no more drilling," do you think they have scored a home run here, Chris, the environmentalist wackos? Then you have Schwarzenegger. He's sitting at home or his office watching it on TV, he puts out a statement (doing impression), "No more oil drilling. It's not going to happen." Well, whether they did it on purpose or whether it's an accident, the environmentalist left is ecstatic about this. There's no question. I'm not the one happy about it in any way, shape, manner, or form. But I have nothing to do with it anyway. I'm not running the country not dealing with it. I'm not the one that waited 12 days before taking it seriously. This isn't my Katrina! I haven't had one Katrina, anyway. So here's more, here's Matthews following up David Corn who was incoherent in his response.

MATTHEWS: There's a teaching moment here. We people are responsible for our habitat. It's possible for mankind to destroy our habitat. This is an example. It is God-given but God's not keeping it here!

CORN: (snorts)

MATTHEWS: It's staying in our hands. It's in our hands, and we can destroy our habitat.

RUSH: (sigh) Uh, "destroy" means "wipe out." We didn't destroy Prince William Sound. Lightning destroys more habitat than man does. These guys are just... This is the problem. These people are not thinkers; they are reactionaries. They are not curious anymore, they simply have templates and narratives of their, you know, various stories to advance their agenda. Whenever something comes up just plug in, and it works. Same show, Cynthia Tucker, an editor of the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation newspaper said this.

TUCKER: Back to the political impact here and right-wingers trying to find a way to blame the president. Because this is happening in real time, it's going to be very hard for them to take people's attention away from BP. This is BP's responsibility. People know President Obama wasn't on that oil rig, and sabotage is out of the question. BP has not suggested that. First of all it's pretty -- it's pretty far down for any, quote, "environmental wackos," quote, to get to, to blow up an oil rig. But people understand because it's happening in real time you can watch the footage of this disaster taking place that the responsibility falls squarely on BP.

RUSH: Has Ms. Tucker forgotten? You know, these people do not understand satire, parody, sarcasm. Has she forgotten how George Bush steered the hurricane to New Orleans? How George Bush coulda stopped it and didn't? George Bush didn't want to save black people. George Bush didn't put FEMA into action down there fast enough 'cause he didn't care that black people were dying. Have they forgotten all this? Do they not understand that we are making fun of them by calling it -- and, by the way, it was not any bunch of right-wingers that first came up with the phrase "Obama's Katrina." That was State-Controlled Media that first came up with that. Finally, to close this out, on MSNBC, Chris Matthews one more time.

MATTHEWS: I hear Rush Limbaugh and the others on the right trying desperately to swim away from this horror. They're talking up conspiracies with sabotage and all the rest. I understand that part. When you're a Dittohead, let's face it, it's just one more moronic idea to bob your head to. Yes, sir. Good point! Sure, Rush. Could be. I'll have my oil now."

RUSH: (laughing) You do not know the delight it is to drive these people nuts! (laughing) The Dittoheads bobbing their heads to whatever I say. (laughing) That's the thing. If he had an audience he wouldn't have a problem here, but he knows he doesn't have an audience. Remember they said Bush blew up the levees! Have you forgotten Jesse Jackson said Bush blew up the levees! Bush blew up the World Trade Center! Have these people forgotten all of this that they said? It even continued over to CNN. Here's what I said yesterday in context. This is after I played the Gene Taylor sound bite where he says, "The spill will break up." Gene Taylor (Democrat-Mississippi) was the guy flowing over it and said, "Yeah, you look down there, it looks like a bunch of chocolate milk but it's breaking up. The sea will take care of it. It's not Armageddon; it's not Katrina." Here's me talking about that.

RUSH ARCHIVE: [H]e is saying something that happens. The oil spill will break up. I'm not trying to minimize it here. But ecology does take care of itself, the planet does. Why all the panic? Oh, a crisis. Well, it's gonna break up. It's not going to be a giant glob when it hits, but it's going to pose problems. I'm not gonna say it's not going to pose problems, but he's saying that as it breaks up it will break down. You know, seawater is pretty tough stuff. Try living in it for a while. Oil has a tough time surviving. This many gallons of oil seep from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico every day, just spread out over the whole floor of the Gulf and it never surfaces 'cause it gets eaten alive, but it seeps from the ocean floor at this amount. Not as concentrated obviously as coming from this well.

COOPER: There's been some truly weird talk about the Gulf oil spill and it's coming from both sides. Rush Limbaugh, Gene Taylor say this is just going to break up naturally. A, is that true; and B, does it mean we should just let nature take its course?

OTT: It's going to break up naturally, same as in Alaska. We're going to probably wait 40 years or 50 years before it all "breaks up naturally," and what we're going to see here probably in Louisiana with a little bit warmer temperature, maybe a little bit more rapid degradation. Maybe a little less than 50 years but who knows how much less

RUSH: What's this 50 years garbage? She's talking about Prince William Sound, and I'm going to put some researchers on this because Drive-By Media was stunned at how quickly it turned around. They were stunned. Remember the story about the otter. They sent an otter out there after cleaning up the otter. They sent it back out there to reintroduce it into its habitat a killer whale surfaced and ate the thing in front of a bunch of high school kids playing a band celebrating the event? The insurance company was upset because it cost them a whole bunch of money to, you know, de-oil the otter and a number of other things. These people were out there on the rocks with Dawn dishwashing detergent, paper towels wiping the rocks because this stuff attacks grease, they say. We'll have to do the research on this. Fifty years the place is...? The Wall Street Journal, by the way, has a great editorial today talking about the risk of oil wells leaking or having accidents, versus tankers having problems. It said the more oil wells we had here the actual safer we would be because the less we would need tankers traversing the oceans, which are the real risk of giant oil spills, such as the Exxon Valdez.